Sawatch

Snowpack

Colin Mitchell · May 10, 2016 · Aspen

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Weather

Mostly cloudy skies with snow showers and periods of intense sun. Warmer and sunnier than expected.

Snowpack

~8" of new snow. Up valley winds drifted in the road, and loaded terrain features overnight. By noon, the new snow was getting moist. Lots of rollerballs and small point releases in the new snow on E aspects at all elevations. By 13:30, some small LW slides were coming off of the west-facing rock bands above the grade. Blowers released two D2 storm slab avalanches at around 12:30. Both were on wind-loaded northwest aspects, and did not step down into old snow layers.